1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope apparatus containing drive motors pulling manipulation wires inside a drum portion winding up an insertion portion where a curving portion is provided.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, endoscope apparatuses have widely used in a medical field and an industrial field. In the industrial field, there are endoscope apparatuses that have considerably long insertion portions so that the endoscope apparatuses can be used for observation of the inside of long pipes. In drum-winding types of endoscope apparatuses among them, each insertion portion is wound on a drum so that each endoscope apparatus may become compact when it is not used for an endoscopy.
In this case, it is desirable that the insertion portion is possibly slender to be able to insert the portion into and inspect a pipe and the like with a small inner diameter. In addition, so as to be able to correspond to a case that the insertion portion is inserted into an inside of a desired pipe among plural branched pipes, it is desirable to provide a curving portion at a tip side portion of the insertion portion.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,259, an endoscope apparatus comprising means making an insertion portion self-propel into a pipe is disclosed.
Since, in this prior patent, the means making the insertion portion self-propel and inserting the portion is provided on an outer circumferential surface of the insertion portion, the insertion portion becomes large. Furthermore, since curving is performed by providing artificial muscles on an outer circumferential surface of a tip of the insertion portion, the outer diameter of the insertion portion becomes large. Therefore, this patent has a demerit that the range of objects that this insertion portion can be inserted into and inspect is limited.
A first object of the present invention is to provide an endoscope apparatus that has a slender insertion portion, secures an easily operable curving function, and can have a compact size when an endoscopy is not performed.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an endoscope apparatus capable of performing the endoscopy simply and quickly.
This endoscope apparatus of the present invention comprises:
a slender, flexible insertion portion that has a curving portion free to be curved and can be inserted into a lumen;
an illumination optical system emitting illumination light and an imaging optical system imaging a subject illuminated by the illumination optical system, both of which are provided in a tip portion of the insertion portion;
a drum portion that the proximal end of the insertion portion is connected to and a take-up portion, where the insertion portion is wound up, is provided in;
manipulation wires that are inserted in an axial direction of the insertion portion and make the curving portion curve by moving to the axial direction;
drive motors that are provided in the drum portion and makes the curving portion curve by moving the manipulation wires; and
curving manipulation means for performing curving manipulation of the curving portion by controlling drive operation of the drive motors. This endoscope apparatus realizes a slender curving portion by adopting the construction of curving the curving portion by moving the manipulation wires, and secures light curving manipulation by moving the manipulation wires with the drive motors through the operation with the curving manipulation means. Furthermore, this endoscope apparatus can have a compact size by winding the insertion portion on the drum portion when the endoscopy is not performed.